29 October 2010

Savers Left In The Dark

Many of us feel that we are not getting the most out of our savings. Now, new research actually suggests we are being purposefully left in the dark.

In a new piece of research from Which?, it has been revealed that those people who are putting their money into savings in both banks and building societies are not getting out of the service what they ought to be.

It is reported by the company that savers are missing out on as much as £332 (an average marker) because they are not being properly informed by the banks and building societies in question, about the correct interest rates they should be earning.

What the survey research shows that it is only through consumer ignorance that the correct interest rates are not being paid and that this ignorance is directly equated to the banks withholding information to the consumer.

In what was an enormous downsizing operation, the amount of interest that was paid to savers was cut back by half in the 2008-2009 period, seeing a reduction from £39 billion to just £19.2 billion.

The research firm discovered that almost half of the 1,200 plus savings accounts available in the UK pay just 0.4 pc after tax interest with many paying less than this. In what seems almost a contradiction of terms, an average savings account in the UK would earn you just 80 pence for every £1,000 saved, leaving many asking what the point is in using such an account.

Many banks, it is reported, do not even make their interest rates public-instead they choose to withhold any fluctuations, crediting the saving consumer with an interest rate that they decide and that is in their hands to manoeuvre if they so wish.

It is thought that only a handful of banks (which include Yorkshire BS, Skipton BS, Barclays and HSBC) actually print their rates.